Last Post of 2008!

Our camera is now on the fritz. Here are some of the last shots we caught before everything went pink and fuzzy.

Strollin' around.

Gosh, this Santa guy? We aren't sure we like him. Even though last year we were just fine with him.

Mom got in the picture to try to help Natalie smile. It didn't work.

Things went downhill from there. Please note the look of immense displeasure on her face. Point taken.

Her first "real" taste of snow! It was snowy when she and I traveled to Michigan last January for Aunt Amy's baby shower, but she was too little to really experience it. This year Aunt Pam pulled her around in the sled outside, which Natalie thought was pretty cool (especially since cousins Emma and Nathan were playing alongside the sled)!

We had a wonderful holiday this year. We went to Michigan for the week of Christmas and Natalie was a champion traveler. Mom and Dad were very proud! Natalie had such a nice time with our extended family... it was hard to leave.

A few more notes -

Natalie is quite the talker these days. She likes to have pretend conversations with 'See-see' (i.e. Reese)!

She loves it when we sing the ABCs to her. She bobs her head and shakes it all around, and asks us to sing it again. Considering that her other favorite songs all either hip hop or rock, we think this is just fine!

Natalie is starting to adore Elmo. She picks him out in all of her books and squeaks "Elmo!" with delight. What is it about that fuzzy little red guy?

Here is a little video of Natalie enjoying the chair she got from Grandma and Grandpa Gibbs for Christmas. She totally loves it!

Why haven't we taken pictures lately?

We've been remiss, that's why. We will do better with the holidays approaching. We *should* have had Santa pictures for you this weekend but Natalie's nap schedule didn't cooperate with Santa's visiting hours at a local shop in San Francisco... so we will take those next week.

About a week and a half ago we found out that Natalie's going to have a baby brother! We are reading a book we got from the pediatrician over and over these days - it's called "Babies" (creative title) and it goes through all the things babies need, like food, and sleep, and play, and love. Natalie loves the book so let's hope she is learning something from it. Probably not though - we think she just likes the baby pictures.

I did notice this morning that she is getting very jealous of Reese, if the cat comes too close to Natalie's favorite toy - whatever that might be during a given five minute interval. Not a good sign. We will work on that characteristic over the coming months :-)

Thanksgiving Recap

Here's a picture of three of my favorite creatures: My dad, my daughter, and my cat.
Natalie sure had a great time with my parents when they came to visit us in November!

Then last week we flew to Tyler's parents' house, just north of Seattle. It was co-o-o-o-ld! We had to bundle Natalie up during our trip to the park. Another wonderful time was had by all.

Natalie was very much indulged by attention from all sorts of grandparents two weekends in a row! She will be completely bored this upcoming weekend with only mom and dad and Reese to occupy her.

We got back to California on Saturday. Predictably, I was all ready on Sunday to get our Christmas tree! Luckily Tyler knows me by now so he was mentally prepared as well for the task.

Natalie had fun picking a Christmas tree. Remember last year when we picked out a Christmas tree? She's, um, a little bit bigger now :-)

-22 lbs 6 oz (a loss of 2 oz from a couple weeks ago, and the same weight as she was in October - oh well)

-31.5 inches

Helping mom decorate the Christmas tree on Sunday! She did a great job taking ornaments off for us.